


Strange Fruit

by unreliablefairyservant



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Dunmore Pineapple, Gen, Pineapples, Post-Book, Post-Series, poor Strange isn't taking this very well, unintentionally serious, yes it deserves a tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-07 04:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4248999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unreliablefairyservant/pseuds/unreliablefairyservant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange and Norrell travel to Dunmore House in Scotland in search of something that may help them break their enchantment</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this was going to be a crackfic, but as soon as I put my pen to the paper, actual plot happened. It's mostly setup so far (and sorry for the lack of pineapples!) but I have a fair idea of where I'm going.

The black tower must have arrived some time during the night, for it was there when the servants got up in the morning. Molly Thomson, the kitchen maid, got such an awful fright that she very near fainted when she saw it. She had been visiting her sick father on her day off and, given his condition, decided to spend the night in her childhood home and return to Dunmore House early the next morning. This meant that she was the first person at Dunmore House to see the black tower from the outside.

Inside the house, the servants were all milling about, confused as to why they were all awake and well rested, when all the clocks clearly showed that it was only just midnight. The butler, a very grave-looking man named Howard Jones, raised his voice over the other servants' murmuring ones to say that, since he had been the last one to bed after doing his rounds – at a few minutes past midnight – he could assure them that they had not, in fact, slept a mere two hours. Clearly something else was afoot. Perhaps, he added in a very measured voice – a voice that those who had known him the longest took to mean he was excited by the prospect – it was _magic_.

Right about then, Molly Thomson burst in through the door and exclaimed something to the effect that she was delighted to see them all alive and well. She turned to Mr. Jones and said, “for I feared, sir, that the house had come under a terrible curse.” And so she told them all about the black tower she had seen, and how she had feared for her own life, but still she had ventured inside to find out what had happened.

When she had finished her tale, the servants all looked at one another, and some of them remembered old tales of what scorned fairies can do, but others yet remembered the articles in the newspaper a few years ago. The ones that told of Mr. Strange, the mad English magician, and of his black tower.

Could it be, then, that Mr. Strange had reappeared from wherever he had disappeared to, and come to Dunmore? And why?

It was decided that Mr. Jones should take the footmen with him to find out what was going on, and to make sure that everything was as it should with Lord Dunmore. Even if the lord was still asleep, it was generally agreed that the current situation was emergency enough to wake him up.

* * *

As all this was going on downstairs, Jonathan Strange was seated in the library of Dunmore House. Those who knew him would have recognized his unruly hair (longer than it used to be, but still with a tinge of auburn to it), his familiar nose and his ironical smile. But they would have also said that there was something different about him. Perhaps he had grown thinner? But that was not it. No, he looked somehow wilder, more _magical_ , as a man who has spent a long time in places far beyond our ken. He was speaking to someone, a smaller man who was walking along one wall, scanning the bookshelves. The other man looked a little older than Strange, though it would have been hard for our hypothetical onlooker to tell either of their ages. Both men looked somehow age-less. The older man (if, indeed, he was older) wore old-fashioned clothes and his eyes, though not large, peered out a the world with an expression that would have reminded the onlooker of an owl. Though the two men looked entirely different, the magical air that hung about them was the same. The other man was, of course, Strange's old tutor – Gilbert Norrell.

* * *

The fifth Earl of Dunmore was a man in his late fifties. Always a man of habit, he liked to get up early in the morning and take his breakfast before either his wife or his sons were awake. It was the best time of day, or so he frequently said. A time that he had fully to himself. At present, he had recently woken up and – wondering why no one had yet lit the fire in his room, and why it was still so dark – had got out of bed and put on his dressing-gown. He had just finished tying the sash when the door opened and Mr. Jones burst in, followed by two footmen. When they saw Lord Dunmore, the men seemed to relax ever so slightly, though Ewan – the younger of the footmen – still had a sort of nervous spring to his step, as if he were preparing to launch into a sprint at any moment. A look from Mr. Jones sent the footmen out again.

“My lord,” said Mr. Jones once the door had closed. Then, uncharacteristically, he hesitated. After a short pause he said, “do you remember, my lord, the stories of Mr. Strange's black tower?”

Lord Dunmore did.

“What about it?” he asked.

Mr. Jones looked at the window, through which no morning light shone. He went over and pulled aside the curtain. “We believe that he may be here now, my lord.”

Lord Dunmore was not sure what to make of this information. A magician, here? Why? Out loud, he said, “I thought Mr. Strange and his tutor had both disappeared?”

Mr. Jones agreed that they had. But there was no arguing with the darkness outside the window, and he told Lord Dunmore of what the maid had seen.

It was agreed that they ought to go and look for the magician, if indeed he was there. And so, Lord Dunmore got dressed by candle-light and went out into his gloomy house, looking for a man who may or may not be there.

* * *

It didn't take them very long to find Strange. Where, after all, does one look for a magician, if not in a library?

At first Lord Dunmore was surprised to find that Strange was not alone. But then he recalled that the other famous English magician – the, presumably, respectable one – had disappeared as well. There had been so many rumours going around about the magicians at the time. Lord Dunmore tried not to listen to rumours, but he distinctly recalled someone saying that Strange had murdered his old tutor, just like he had murdered his wife. But then, Mrs. Strange wasn't dead after all, was she? That explained it, he decided. Mr. Norrell was just as dead as Mrs. Strange, which is to say that he was not, in fact, dead at all.

Mr. Strange rose up from his chair when Lord Dunmore entered the room, and Mr. Norrell left the bookshelf with a lingering glance. A small amount of confusion followed regarding how one ought to introduce gentlemen who had appeared out of nowhere in another gentleman's home (during which time Mr. Strange stared sheepishly at his shoes, the wall and Lord Dunmore's left ear, and Mr. Norrell kept fidgeting with something in his hand and glancing over at the bookshelves). Once the introductions were taken care of, Mr. Strange cleared his throat and spoke.

“My lord, we have come here because we are looking for a book.”

“A book?” repeated Lord Dunmore.

“Yes, my lord. We believe it may hold a clue as to how we can free ourselves from this.” Mr. Strange gestured vaguely around himself, indicating the darkness that surrounded them.

Lord Dunmore considered this for a moment. “But I have no books of magic,” he said. “In fact, I believe I sold the ones I had to a man in your employ.” Here, he turned to Mr. Norrell who tore his gaze from the bookshelves to agree that certainly that was the case.

“But, my lord,” said Mr. Norrell, “it is not a book of magic that we need.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we find out what the magicians are searching for.

“Not a book of magic?” asked Lord Dunmore.

“Indeed, my lord.” Mr. Norrell began to explain, but he did so in a very convoluted fashion, and Lord Dunmore found that there were so many references to books and magicians that he was not familiar with that he had to make an effort to keep up. The gist of it seemed to be that the magicians had found a reference to a Scottish fairy-tale which – because of a number of allusions in other more creditable pieces of work – they believed could help them discover a way of breaking their curse.

”But we need to find the original text, my lord,” said Mr. Norrell. ”Finding a grain of truth in any fairy-tale is hard enough, harder still once it's been compromised by centuries of re-tellings and embellishments.” Mr. Norrell seemed prepared to launch into a tirade on the unreliability of folk tales, or possibly on the people who told them in general, but Mr. Strange sent him a look that, curiously, made him fall silent.

”And what makes you think this book is in my possession, sirs?” Lord Dunmore had never been a man much interested in magic, seeing it as something that scholars busied themselves with. Neither had he had much leisure for reading in his life, being a conscientious man who took the running of his estate very seriously. He was precisely the sort of lord that Mr. Norrell had approved of once upon a time (and presumably still did); the sort that without question would have sold his valuable books to Mr. Norrell back in the day. He was certainly no collector of old fairy-tales.

”Ah!” said Mr. Strange before Mr. Norrell could begin anew. ”Because we have reason to believe it was first written down by Mary Elphinstone, daughter to the first Lord Elphinstone, a family with which I am sure my lord is familiar1.”

Lord Dunmore was. But he confessed he did not know much of the history of the family.

”Well, my lord,” said Strange. ”Mary Elphinstone was one of five daughters, and while her sisters distinguished themselves – so the stories go – by their excellent needlework or their remarkable beauty, miss Mary Elphinstone took an interest in stories. She would go out to the cottages on her father's land under the guise of charity, and there she would listen, and she would write. There is some evidence that she corresponded with some known scholars of the time. Some even believe that she met with Dr. Martin Pale after writing to him about the stories she discovered, even though the factuality of this is a matter of some debate.” Mr. Strange glanced at Mr. Norrell, who pressed his lips together but remained silent.

Mr. Strange continued quickly, ”the originals were kept at Elphinstone Tower, where the family lived, and presumably sold along with the estate. That is why we have come here, my lord.”

”Well then!” said Lord Dunmore. ”If a book in my possession can help the famous English magicians, I would consider it a great honour. Let us find it at once.”

Mr. Strange made a face. ”There is a small problem, my lord. We have already taken the liberty of looking for the book, and we could not find it.”

Together, the magicians explained that, due to the particular nature of their curse, it was a little hard for them to tell the time. They had intended to show up when everyone in the house was still awake, but due to a miscalculation (here, Mr. Norrell shot Mr. Strange a glare; it was evident that there had been something of an argument) they had arrived in what must have been the small hours of the morning. To occupy themselves until the house awoke, they had searched the library. They were, of course, very sorry for the intrusion. Did Lord Dunmore perhaps keep books anywhere else in the building?

Lord Dunmore thought about it. Normally, all the books were kept in the library. ”But,” he said, ”my boys are all home from school at present. Perhaps one of them has taken it to read.”

Mr. Norrell muttered something that could have been interpreted as, ”most suitable reading for children,” but at that very moment, Mr. Strange was seized with a coughing fit, and Mr. Norrell's exact words were lost. The young men were all still asleep, but it was decided that the magicians should stay for breakfast and perhaps a tour of the grounds while they waited for them to wake.

Since nobody was able to tell what time it was and whether or not it was appropriate to serve breakfast – the clocks all being stuck at midnight – Mr. Jones took matters into his own hands and sent word to the kitchen to prepare something to eat. The unusual darkness was confusing for the servants, and the cook ended up sending out not just the usual rolls and marmalade, but also an assortments of fruits that were supposed to go on the dinner table later that day.

Lord Dunmore, Mr. Strange and Mr. Norrell seated themselves at the table. They had decided to postpone all further talk of the book and its contents until they had all had something to eat. Indeed, it had been quite some time since either of the magicians had eaten food that was not magical, and they were looking forward to it.

Breakfast commenced. Rolls were buttered, tea was poured, eggs were peeled. The magicians took the news that King George the Third had passed away in their absence with suitable solemnity, but without great surprise. He had, after all, been an old man. Perhaps he had now been granted some respite from the madness that had plagued him.  
"I see that you are admiring our tropical fruits!” said Lord Dunmore a little while later. Mr. Strange's gaze had been drawn back time and time again to the fruit arrangement for a large part of the breakfast. His expression was most odd, but Lord Dunmore assumed it must be one of admiration. Nothing else made sense. ”They have been grown here in Dunmore Park, in our very own hothouse!” Lord Dunmore was very proud of his hothouse. It was a folly, built by his father, but for a folly it was most functional (if extravagant) and supplied the family with fresh exotic fruits.

”They are … very nice.” There was a certain strangled quality to Mr. Strange's voice.

”I'm not sure why they brought them out now to be honest, but George can cut some up for you if you'd care to try.” At Lord Dunmore's words one of the footmen, presumably George, stepped up to the table.

”Oh! No, no thank you,” said Mr. Strange, still looking most queer. ”I generally prefer eggs for breakfast.” The look he now shot at the fruit arrangement was without a doubt a glare. It was all very unusual.

The footman disappeared again and the breakfast continued as breakfasts normally do, though Mr. Strange was perhaps a little more silent than his reputation would have him. The magicians both inquired about what had happened in English magical circles since their departure, but on this subject Lord Dunmore was sadly not particularly informative. There was certainly a great deal of talk about magic, of that he was sure, but he had never really taken an interest in it, and so tended to drift off when the subject was discussed at length. He did have some information on Mr. Strange's Scottish relatives – the Erquistounes – that he was happy to share.

”And would you like me to pass on a message for your wife?” asked Lord Dunmore. ”I'm sure the Erquistounes know how to contact her at the very least.”

Mr. Strange hesitated. ”I do not know if it would be wise,” he said at last. ”I should not like to get her hopes up in case this,” he gestured vaguely, ”is not a success. And I told her to be happy. It would be irresponsible of me to just … barge in and remind her of me when perhaps she …” Mr. Strange drifted off with a wistful glance out the window. Lord Dunmore did not push the question.

At about the same time as the company had finished eating breakfast, two young men entered the room, looking curiously about them in the darkness. They both seemed to be about twenty, both of them fashionably dressed, dark-haired and handsome but with a certain Scottish stubbornness to them that could be taken for arrogance.

”There you are!” said Lord Dunmore at once. ”What have you done with Henry?”

The young men, who must be two of Lord Dunmore's sons, shrugged. ”Still asleep?” one of them suggested.

The sons were introduced as the Viscount Fincastle and Mr. Charles Murray. Both were delighted that they would be able to tell their friends they had met with the two famous (mythical, even) English magicians that no one had heard a word from for years. They had not taken any books from the library – they were both very happy with their holiday, thank you very much, and anyway old fairy-tales did not sound like something either of them would like to read.

”It's probably Henry,” said Lord Fincastle. ”He's always going on about stories, you should ask him.”

Lord Dunmore said that it was very unusual that the two of them were up before their younger brother. ”He's always been the early riser. Takes after me.” He thought for a moment. ”Perhaps he has already woken up and gone outside?” It did seem queer that he would do such a thing when the darkness still lay heavy on the house. A servant was sent up to investigate and came back with word that young Master Henry's bed was made and he was not in it. Most queer indeed.

”Perhaps he went down to the hothouse?” suggested Mr. Murray. ”He sits down there and reads a lot. Can't be good for the books, I always think.”

Mr. Norrell certainly agreed with that, turning slightly pale as he considered centuries old books being destroyed by the humid air of a hothouse.

”Or the Tower,” said Lord Fincastle. ”He went up there yesterday, I know that much.”

”And does your mother know about that?” asked Lord Dunmore with a stern look. He was answered with more shrugs. The brothers ambled off and left Lord Dunmore alone with the magicians again. The earl sighed. ”It's no place for a boy to play,” he explained. ”It's not been lived in for years.” Then, after a thoughtful pause, he composed himself. ”Well,” he said. ”I offered to show you around. Why don't we tour the grounds and have a look for my lost son at the same time?”

* * *

1Before the current Earl of Dunmore's father bought the estate in 1754, it had belonged to Lord Elphinstone, whose family had lived on the estate since the barony was first created in the early 16th century.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jonathan Strange encounters a pineapple and comes away shaken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speedy update this time. This chapter (scene, really) wanted to be written from Strange's POV and when I started doing that the words just flew into place.

It took some time to find the coach-lamps, which had been put into storage now that the days were long and the family seldom found the need to travel anywhere in their coach after dark, but eventually a coach pulled up to the house, and Lord Dunmore and his guests stepped inside. Jonathan Strange stared out the coach window at the dark Scottish landscape that opened up around them and thought about his wife. The work he did with Norrell was often enough to draw his attention away from how much he'd like to lay his eyes on her, to kiss her, to smell her hair, but now he found he could not distract himself from those thoughts – and perhaps that coloured his perception of the surrounding landscape.

Dunmore House and the surrounding gardens were pretty enough, he supposed. More or less what you'd expect from a newly built grand house out in the country, but beyond the gardens the land seemed to yawn and stretch, spreading out to show a dismal flat landscape, like an ancient broad riverbed run dry. Strange's gloom seemed to descend further as he looked over at the horizon, at the dark Scottish hills that rose there, lit by a bleak sun that he was in no position to reach. He was dimly aware of Norrell and Lord Dunmore conversing next to him, Norrell in all likelyhood repeating his thoughts on folk-tales and the people who told them (a frequent subject of his since they had made their discovery of Mary Elphinstone's book). A part of Strange thought that perhaps it was his duty to find some more pleasant subject with which to entertain their host. He could tell him of that enchanting little river they had come across in a small Faerie kingdom just last week1, the one that had sung to him and Norrell with a hundred silver voices. But then he remembered that the river had sung of lost love and longing, and his gloom descended further.

After some time, the coach slowed to a halt and they all stepped out. Lord Dunmore and Mr. Norrell were still talking, and walked on without noticing Strange stopping dead in his tracks. They stopped a few feet ahead and strange could just about make out the words ”our hothouse” before something snapped inside his head.

There was a structure ahead of them and Strange could only suppose it was this hothouse that the Earl was so proud of, but it affected him like no hothouse should. He found himself wondering whether Mr. Norrell and he were actually in Scotland, or if this had been a cruel fairy prank all along. The structure – he could not bring himself to refer to it as a building – was a hellish sight. In the middle of it, the _fruit_ , and Strange shuddered to think of it. It was a pineapple twice as tall as a man, thick and prickly and with leaves that threatened to rend the very fabric of the sky with their ragged sharpness. The fruit was surrounded with urns, from which smoke spilled forth in some ghastly rendition of Hell2. The smoke wove around the pineapple, making it appear solid one minute, the next but a mirage.

All of a sudden it was as if the world around him had sprung to life. The ground lurched, the sparse trees drew in close, the dark sky seemed to press down on him. And just as he thought he was falling, he became aware of a pair of strong hands at his elbows, supporting him. And then the world was sharpening by degrees, becoming slightly more real just as it a moment ago had seemed to become less so. The building still appeared thoroughly unlikeable, but not quite as menacing or otherworldly. The smoke still spun around it, and he shook his head to try to clear it.

”Mr. Strange?” came a voice. ”Are you all right sir?” asked another. Strange looked around and realised that he was being supported by Lord Dunmore, and that Mr. Norrell was standing in front of him, looking very concerned.

”I, uh, yes,” he managed.

”For a moment there, it looked like you might have been taken ill,” said Lord Dunmore. Strange considered explaining his vision, but then he looked at Mr. Norrell's and Lord Dunmore's concerned faces, and he thought better of it.

”I'm better now, thank you,” was all he said. He looked up at the building again and shuddered. ”Are we going inside?” he asked, trying not to make his reluctance show too blatantly. Lord Dunmore was clearly very proud of his abominable fruit.

”Yes, let us find out if Henry is here,” said Lord Dunmore, and in they went.

Inside the hothouse it was, as expected, hot, and Strange found that the humid air did nothing for his odd mental state. On the contrary, he continually found that he had to suppress thoughts of the pineapple taking its revenge on mankind by devouring the humans that entered it, like its many brothers and sisters had already been devoured by humans.

At one point, when Lord Dunmore was some feet ahead of them, he pulled Mr. Norrell to the side.

”I say, don't you think the walls are moving rather oddly?” he said.

Mr. Norrell eyed the walls critically. ”It might be condensation,” he suggested. ”But they are certainly not moving.” Then he looked at Strange in much the same way as he had been regarding the walls. ”Are you quite all right?”

”Yes, yes, quite all right,” repeated Strange, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him. ”There, did you see it now?”

Mr. Norrell shook his head. ”Perhaps you should have rested after we performed the spell,” he suggested. ”I, myself … ” but what Mr. Norrell was going to say was lost, as Lord Dunmore at that moment came striding back into the room.

”The boy isn't here,” he said, and sadly neither of the magicians were in a state (by mood or by nature) to spot his worry and comfort him.

”I don't like it,” said Lord Dunmore, ”but I rather think Fincastle was right. He's probably gone up to the Tower.”

Back into the coach they went, Strange taking a moment to savour the cool night air before stepping inside. Once inside, Lord Dunmore explained that The Tower, or Elphinstone Tower, used to be where the Elphinstone family lived. But it was not a modern place, and no-one had set foot inside it since Dunmore House had been completed just the other year. Lord Dunmore hesitated a moment before adding, ”apart from the boys, it seems.”

* * *

1 This event had taken place a month ago, showing what travelling through Faerie for any length of time will do to the travellers perception of said time. It may also shed some light on the trouble the magicians had gone through in trying to arrive at Dunmore House at a certain hour of the day.

2 In reality, the urns were the chimneys of the hothouse, cleverly disguised as Grecian urns in order to be more pleasing to look at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some fun going around Dunmore on Google Streetview (as close to the Pineapple as I could get) - the landscape really is incredibly flat.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author has far too much fun describing architecture.

Elphinstone Tower was not a cheerful building. It lay at the top of a steep slope that rose from the flatness of the unsuspecting landscape, and allowed the tower to be seen from a long way off. In the artificial night it was just a darker square against the starry sky, with the exception of a small turret that shot off from one corner and looked rather out of place with its fanciful pointed roof – the only visible decoration that the tower had. 

When the coach drew closer, it was possible to see windows, placed seemingly at random around the walls, all at different heights, all different sizes. They gaped dark and empty, the window-panes having presumably been removed and sold off, or used for the new main building when the tower was vacated. The three men got out of the coach and looked up at the building with some sense of trepidation. What the pineapple folly had caused in Strange, they were all feeling the echoes of now. This was a building designed to stand against an army and to lower their morale, and it performed that function even in its decaying state. 

As they were contemplating the building, the coachman approached with a lit lamp in his hand.

”Good man, Thomas,” said Lord Dunmore. ”Wait here by the coach, we'll be back shortly.” Lord Dunmore took the lamp, and with Mr. Strange and Mr. Norrell in tow, he approached the building. 

The arched tower door creaked open after a push and revealed a short passage that almost immediately became two separate sets of stairs, both seeking upwards but in opposite directions. It was as if the staircase had quarrelled with itself at some point in time and promptly divided into two, and both halves were now trying to get as far away from the other half as physically possible. They were both very narrow, furthering the impression that they were but half a staircase each. Lord Dunmore lifted the lamp to see as much as possible of the two staircases before choosing the one facing left. 

”They both lead up to the same room,” he explained. ”I never understood why they built it like this, blasted odd thing to do. Imagine getting the furniture in.” 

Neither Mr. Strange nor Mr. Norrell had ever had to consider the logistics of moving furniture into any building like Elphinstone Tower. In fact, they had never taken an active part in supervising the moving of their own furniture at all (books were another matter entirely), but Lord Dunmore was evidently more of a practical, hands-on sort of man who considered things like these, even when he did not have to1.

The staircase opened up into a large, mostly empty room. The only thing in it were a couple of picture-frames that had been left still hanging on the walls. On closer inspection, they all revealed landscape paintings; most of them woodlands or mountains, one or two moors. Lord Dunmore looked a bit embarrassed when he spotted them.

”These should have been removed months ago,” he said, and everything in his demeanour suggested that he would have liked to hide the paintings away, preferably before the magicians saw them at all. He sighed. ”The Elphinstones brought their family portraits with them, of course, but these paintings came with the estate when my father bought it. Nobody has quite been able to summon up the will to bring them into the main house. Not at all what a gentleman wants to gaze on after a long day.” He lifted the lamp in front of one of the woodland paintings and furrowed his brow. The painting was indeed most gloomy. ”Let us continue upstairs. I will have these removed tomorrow.” 

The next floor held a similar collection of paintings, as well as a few pieces of old-fashioned furniture and textiles that no-one had wanted enough to navigate down the narrow stairs. Lord Dunmore went around with the lantern, peering into corners in case his boy had hidden himself behind an ancient chair or drapery (neither of which seemed very likely). The drapery was a cause of some concern for Mr. Norrell. He pulled Mr. Strange to the side as discreetly as he could. 

”Mr. Strange, do you see those draperies?” he asked quietly.

Mr. Strange did. 

”Look there, at the bottom, near the old chair.” Mr. Norrell pointed, at the same time looking over his shoulder to see if Lord Dunmore was observing them. He was not. 

”There's a small hole in the fabric, sir?” answered Mr. Strange, unsure of what Mr. Norrell was getting at. 

”Yes! Yes!” hissed Mr. Norrell. ”Jonathan … ” he stopped himself, the familiarity of the Christian name natural after years spent in the darkness together, but suddenly uncomfortable in company. ”Mr. Strange. Do you suppose there are mice in the tower?” Mr. Norrell's left hand flew up to his wig as he spoke the words, as if making sure no errant mouse had somehow got into it without him noticing.

”It would surprise me if there were none,” said Mr. Strange, before realising that the question had perhaps been a wish for reassurance and not, in fact, for Mr. Strange's opinion on the matter. ”But I'm sure our footsteps will drive them away,” he hurried to add.

Mr. Norrell did not find this very assuring. He kept peering into corners, then looking away hastily – as if he could not quite make his mind up as to whether he would prefer for the mice to remain unseen, or to make themselves known so he knew where he had them. 

The thought of the mice brought a certain feeling of unease to Mr. Strange as well, though he could not put his finger on the cause. Perhaps it was the lingering effects of the shock that the hothouse had given him, he decided – but all the same, he could not shake it off. 

Lord Dunmore appeared from a side room and announced that his son was not to be found on this floor either. If he were in the tower, he must be on the top floor. 

And on the top floor they found him. 

From the way Lord Dunmore and his two elder sons had talked about Henry, the magicians had both presumed him to be still a child, but the person sitting on the wooden floor was a young man2. Certainly younger than his brothers, but by no means a child – he looked about the age of fifteen. The young man was dressed much like his brothers, not at all in clothes made for sitting upon a dusty floor. He was looking very intently at a large painting, so large that it would have been impossible to remove from the room without taking apart its frame, for it covered almost the entirety of the wall it hung on. 

The painting, like the other paintings in the tower, was a landscape painting. It showed a forest with tall dark trees under a starry night sky, and something about the way it was rendered made the observer want to step closer, then closer still, as if untold wonders lay just behind the next tree, and it would be possible to behold them if you could only turn your head just so. 

Henry looked up when they approached, revealing a face of a sort that was sure to make men and women alike turn their heads before long. He had been blessed with a head of natural dark curls, of the sort that so many young men were currently trying to emulate. The same features that suggested arrogance in his brothers had in him turned into pensiveness, but his most striking feature was his light-coloured eyes. They looked curiously out of place against his dark hair and fair skin, and seemed to look right through Mr. Strange and Mr. Norrell.

”Hello father,” he said. ”I see you brought the magicians.”

* * *

1 This personality trait was, incidentally, why Lord Dunmore had never found leisure for reading. His father had been a governor in the Colonies, and subsequently spent a lot of time abroad. By contrast, Lord Dunmore had taken a very practical approach to the running and improval of his estate when he inherited it, deciding among other things that it would not do for the family to continue living in Elphinstone Tower, which was much too small and much too impractical for a modern family.

2 This is often the curse of youngest sons and daughters – the rest of their family will for ever see them in the long curls and muslin frocks they ceased wearing before age five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Fourteenpavanes for coming up with the idea of adding mice! There may have been no actual mice, but hey – we'll see what happens in future chapters.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is talk of a book and a painting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay! I'll do my best to have next chapter up a little quicker.

Strange and Norrell looked at one another, wary. There was a moment of silence, broken by Lord Dunmore. ”The magicians?” he asked.

”Yes,” said the young man softly. ”They have come looking for something, and they think I have it.”

Mr. Strange took a step forward. ”How do you know this? Tell us!” he demanded.

Despite the brusqueness of Mr. Strange's manner, Henry just smiled up at him. ”I was told so,” he said.

”Who could have told you that?” asked Lord Dunmore. ”We've all been looking for you.” He seemed to remember something. ”Mary said your bed was made up. When did you leave the house?”

Henry shrugged. ”Yesterday?”

This was not the answer that Lord Dunmore had wished to hear. ”Yesterday?” he repeated, in a very sharp voice. ”My dear boy, surely you are old enough to realise that you cannot just go running off whenever you take a fancy to it. And going here of all places. Have you been here all night?”

Henry looked like he was about to say something, but changed his mind. He opened his mouth, looked puzzled for a second, and then closed it again. Instead of talking, he stood up and brushed off some of the dust from his clothes. He looked right at the two magicians now, utterly ignoring his fathers demands that he answer him.

”She told me to wait here for you,” he said.

Mr. Strange looked from Henry to Mr. Norrell and back again. ”Who did?” he asked slowly.

”My lady,” said Henry, but he offered no further explanation. Mr. Strange regarded him critically, then whispered a few words to Mr. Norrell that Lord Dunmore could not make out. There was a short, murmured conversation and then Mr. Strange took a few steps closer to Henry. He waved his hand in front of the young man's eyes, made a complicated gesture in the air, then muttered something under his breath. Henry looked at him with a curious expression.

”What are you doing, magician?” he asked, and Lord Dunmore thought his son's voice held a curious whispering quality.

Mr. Strange frowned. ”Nothing,” he said, but the word seemed to be directed less at Henry and more at Mr. Norrell.

”Perhaps you were mistaken,” said Mr. Norrell, but his tone was uncertain, and he too wore a frown. ”Perhaps … ” but he stopped himself, eyes darting from Henry to Lord Dunmore.

”Well, I suppose we'll find out,” said Strange.

Once this rather enigmatic exchange was over, Lord Dunmore started to feel that he would prefer not to spend any more time in the gloomy tower than strictly necessary. He decided that the best way of dealing with things he did not understand was to ignore them, and to concentrate on what he did understand.

”Henry,” he said. ”Did you bring a book with you here?” In his mind he had already decided on the outcome of this question. Henry would say yes, he would give the magicians the book, and then they would all leave the tower together and never speak of this again.

”I did,” said Henry, and Lord Dunmore relaxed ever so slightly. ”But,” continued the boy, ”it's not here any longer.”

”What do you mean?” asked Strange, at almost the same time as Norrell asked, ”did something happen to it?” Henry smiled, and there was something otherworldly about his smile. ”My lady asked me for it,” he said. ”She wanted to read it very much, she said.”

”And who is this lady?” asked Strange. ”Will we meet her?”

”Oh yes,” said Henry. ”She said she would like to see you.”

”Did she now!” said Mr. Strange. He looked over at Mr. Norrell and seemed to communicate something with a movement of his head.

”My lord,” said Mr. Norrell to Lord Dunmore. ”Can I speak with you for a moment?” As Strange continued talking to Henry, Mr. Norrell and Lord Dunmore walked over to the other side of the room. Once there, Mr. Norrell spoke in a low voice. ”Mr. Strange and I believe that your son may be under an enchantment. It … may pose a risk to the enchanted if we try to lift it here and now, but if we can meet with the person who placed the spell upon him …”

At that point, something started happening to the painting that Henry had been studying so intently. It was difficult to say how it changed exactly, but the impression of change was certainly there. Perhaps the colours deepened, the perspective shifted ever so slightly, the lines of the trees grew crisper. There was a faint smell of fresh leaves on the air and, before anyone could react, Henry had taken a few steps forward and disappeared into the painting.

The three remaining men looked at the painting, then at one another, for a few stunned seconds. It was Mr. Norrell who broke the silence by crying, ”why didn't you stop him?”

Mr. Strange regarded the painting for another second. ”I didn't know you could do that,” he said at last. In some way he seemed amused by the situation. He stepped closer to the painting and touched it very lightly. The surface shimmered and rippled like a pool of water. ”It's a door!” he said to Norrell.

”Oh yes,” said Norrell. ”I never saw the purpose of it myself. Pale mentions it, but very briefly. I'm not surprised you didn't pick up on it.” He went over to where Mr. Strange was standing and peered at the painting. ”Normally, a person who walked through would find themselves in the painted landscape. An amusing diversion perhaps, but not very useful.” Mr. Norrell turned his head as if he were trying to see more of the landscape within the frame. ”But perhaps it's possible to use the form of it for something more useful.”

”So if the painting were created for the spell for instance?” asked Strange. ”Then it wouldn't be entirely unlike a mirror, am I understanding you correctly?”

Mr. Norrell nodded.

”Well then!” said Mr. Strange. ”What are we waiting for?” he raised his hand and seemed about to follow Henry into the painting, but Mr. Norrell put a hand on his wrist, stopping him.

”I don't think we should bring his lordship with us,” he said. Mr. Strange turned around and looked on Lord Dunmore. Everything about the magician's demeanour suggested that he had completely forgotten about the precense of the Earl. ”Ah,” he said. ”I'm sorry my lord. Mr. Norrell is right, it would probably not be wise for you to come with us. We have no idea what waits behind the painting after all. If Henry needs protecting, it would be best if we were able to focus all our attention on him. I'm sure you understand.”

Lord Dunmore was not entirely happy with this. He would much have preferred to join the magicians, and to have some insight into what was happening to his son. At the same time he recognised that his particular skill set may not be all that useful inside a painting, and he had always respected men who knew their limits.

”I assure you, my lord,” said Strange, ”that we shall do our utmost to keep your son safe. We shall have him home presently. And in one piece.”

And with those words the magicians took their leave from Lord Dunmore and followed his son into the painting. The darkness disappeared with them as quickly as if a heavy curtain had been opened on a sunny day, and Lord Dunmore stood blinking in the sudden daylight. In front of him, the painted forest lay dark.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet an old friend

The first hundred feet or so looked much like the painted forest had done. Strange supposed this was what had been visible from outside the painting. The trees around them grew high and silence stretched on, broken by the occasional call of an unfamiliar bird. When the wind rustled the crowns of the trees far above, the stars of the black tower could be seen in the sky.

Henry was waiting for them a little way into the forest, at the point where the trees started to grow more crooked, sprout more branches closer to the ground, stretch out to the sides rather than reaching for the sky. When the magicians came closer to him, he turned and, indicating that they should follow him, continued walking along the path.

The trees grew more crooked still, sprouted thorns bigger than a man's hand, seemed to reach for the men when they walked past. Like large fruits, curious and distorted shapes hung in the trees. There was something unsettling about them. Strange tried not to look, but beside him Norrell grew pale and made a strangled sound. Strange followed his gaze to one of the large fruit-like shapes and recoiled as he discovered that it was no fruit at all, but what seemed without a doubt to be a human skull.

Norrell had stopped in his tracks, so Strange took him gently by the shoulders and steered him further along the path, casting a glance behind them as he walked. The other shapes looked more sinister still and he should not like Norrell to look too long upon them, considering his reaction to seeing the skull. Ahead of them, Henry walked on – seemingly at ease in the ever-darker forest.

After a while they came to a gate of wrought iron, bordered by tall cypresses that looked very out of place among the squat, many-branched thorn trees. Through the gate, the path continued to a fountain, in the middle of which stood a statue. The statue held something in its hand, and Mr. Strange was about to examine it closer when a figure stepped out from behind it, and both Strange and Norrell started back.

They had expected a fairy perhaps, and perhaps there was something fairy-like in the expression of the figure, if only the cold cruelty of it. But at the same time the figure was indisputably human, and it was someone they both recognized. It was none other than Henry Lascelles.

”Dear God!” exclaimed Strange, at about the same time as Norrell said, ”is that…” before clamping a hand over his own mouth. The way Lascelles looked was so horribly different from any way either of the two magicians had ever seen him that it was difficult to know how to react.

Lascelles had always been finely dressed, and what he now wore did indeed seem like what had once been fashionable clothes of high quality. However, it also seemed that he had been wearing them for some time. The colours were muted, as if washed out by years of sun and rain. His collar, neckcloth and shirt cuffs were yellowed and frayed in places, where it seemed like he had picked at them. In one hand he held a pistol.

He stopped some feet ahead of the other men. Norrell was about to address him, but Strange laid a hand on his shoulder and held him back. ”Look at his eyes,” he said.

Lascelles' eyes were indeed very odd. They seemed almost flat in their blackness. He opened his mouth to speak and his voice, when it came, seemed ill-used. There was a dead quality to it, monotone, and Strange shuddered at the things it brought to mind.

”I am the Champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart,” he said. ”I offer challenges to those…” but here Norrell's shock had subsided enough for him to speak,

”Mr. Lascelles!” he said. ”What on earth are you doing here?”

”He cannot hear you,” said young Henry, who had turned and come back to join the magicians. ”Don't mind him”

It was Strange's turn to speak. When he did, it was in a calm, measured tone that would have been recognisable to those who had known him in the Peninsula. ”And for just how long has he been there?” he said.

Henry shrugged. ”He has always been here.”

Norrell turned to Strange then.

”It is him, is it not?”

Strange nodded. ”He must have been here for years,” he said. ”Look at his coat. I could swear I've seen it before.”

Norrell peered at Lascelles' greatcoat but, having never taken an interest in such things, could not claim to recognize it. It did look very old. Well-worn.

”Mr. Lascelles,” spoke Strange, his voice calm and clear, the type of tone one employs with spooked horses and panicked soldiers. ”Can you hear us?”

”I am the Champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart,” said Lascelles again. ”Do you challenge my Lady's honour?” Beside him, young Henry shook his head.

”We do not,” said Strange, after a moment's hesitation. ”We are here on her invitation.”

Lascelles seemed oddly disappointed to hear this. He deflated, sighed, the hand holding the pistol dropped to his side.

”Come,” said young Henry. ”We should move on.”

”Is there nothing we can do for him?” asked Strange.

”Mr. Strange, I would remind you _again_  of how unwise it would be to try to disenchant someone enchanted by our host,” said Norrell sharply. ”Just think of the danger we would put ourselves in!”

Strange had to concede to that. They left Lascelles behind and continued walking along the path. Ahead of them stood a tall, grim-looking tower that would not have looked out of place in the Scotland they had just left. There was a single light shining in one of the windows.

”There,” said Henry. ”The castle of my Lady.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeep I've changed Lascelles' surroundings a bit from the book but I have _thoughts_ about that. Mainly thoughts about Faerie shaping itself around people's subconscious to some degree, and Lascelles being _really_ into Classical mythology, where cypresses are associated with death and grief.


End file.
